Mr Asanti Wedding

I have a lot of photographs that I shot on film Negative, one of the problems I find with film chemistry in West Africa is that the same chemistry is used over and over again it deteoriates the film negative qualtiy and leaves you with a very poor negative finish...so when you get the prints they look somewhat flat..

Any ideas on how to improve on this on Photoshop?

Mr Asanti Wedding

I have a lot of photographs that I shot on film Negative, one of the problems I find with film chemistry in West Africa is that the same chemistry is used over and over again it deteoriates the film negative qualtiy and leaves you with a very poor negative finish...so when you get the prints they look somewhat flat..

Via another photographer, I came to shutterchance and saw the ghana flag and clicked on it. Lovely fotos you have here.

Regarding this one, it's very interesting to read what you say about the use, or reuse of chemistry. I was always wondering why pictures looked funny.

Anyways, there are a few ways you could try to spice up this picture, but one thing you need to know is that what is not there, cannot be added.
I think the issue with this picture is that the white balance is a bit off. A technique in Photoshop is to use the Threshold Adjustment Layer to find the white and black points in the picture.
1) Open the picture in Photoshop.
2) Using the third icon from the left in the layers palette, add a new Adjustment Layer called Threshold. Your image turns to a 2 bit B/W image. No worries.
3) To get the black point, move the slider all the way to the left. Then using the Up Arrow key, move the slider towards the right till you see a black spot anywhere in the picture.
4) Going over this spot in the image with your cursor, it changes to an eye-dropper. Press the SHIFT key and click on the black spot in the image. You should see cross-marks at that spot. If there are a few black spots, choose any.
5) Now we do the same thing, but at the other end of the histogram, for the white spot. So using your mouse, move the slider all the way to the right. Your image turns black. Using the Down Arrow this time, move the slider till you see some white patches. Press the SHIFT key and click on an absolute white patch.
6) Don't press the OK button in the Threshold window, but CANCEL. You don't want to apply anything.

There's also a way to find the midpoint, but that would take too much time.

7) Once back to your original image, click on the Adjustment Layer icon again in the Layers Palette, but this time, choose Curves. The Curves dialogue box opens and you should see 3 eye droppers. A black one, grey and a white one..
8)Click on the one for Black and then in your image, click in the middle of the crosshairs that you had chosen for your black point.
9) Then click on the white eyedropper and do the same for the white point.
10) Click OK.
Your image should be a bit more balanced by now and you have a new Adjustment Layer. Click on the eye next to it to see if there is any improvement with the original.

To further tweak the image, go tto Image -> Adjustments and use Hue/Saturation or Curves to balance the colors a bit. Another main problem in the image is that the dark areas and blacks have a green tint to them. That is from the much used chemicals, right? Try applying some color balance to see if you can remove that.